Tayari Jones offers tips for gathering the team of readers that will take your work to the next level.
So you’ve just gotten through with your manuscript. You know I know it's not a beautiful work of art yet, but you’ve done all I can do by yourself. It's now time to bring in the first team of readers. Here's how I picked my readers, I call them Team T.
And as a bonus, a little writerly etiquette—
And of course, it’s now over to you SheWriters. Do you have a critique team? How did you put the team together?
Related: Ten People Have Given You Ten Different Types of Advice. Now what? Ten Suggestions.
PS I just read the novel Wench and found you mentioned in the acknowledgments. What a page turner.
Such great advice. I am finding this part to be such a challenge.
Interesting coincidence, I just put up a little hymn of praise to my critique group of the past twenty years on my author facebook site!
The core of this group as been with me through thick and thin, and they will be the first to read my next novel. Their individual input on the manuscript is crucial, but probably more importantly, their collective wisdom and support has been even more invaluable.
However, since that group is down to 4, a year ago, when it came to do the last rewriting and editing of my historical novel, Maids of Misfortune: A Victorian San Francisco Mystery, I broadened my team considerably.
In addition to writers, since I had written an historical novel, I got other historians to read it, to ensure I didn't let any inaccuracies in. I also got non-writers to read it, if they were fans of the sub-genre. My historical is a definite cozy, with a female sleuth, and since most of my writer friends don't write in this genre, it was important to get a fan's perspective, on character development, use of romance and humor, etc. I am a retired professor of women's history, so these readers also tended to be other college professors, who, having spent their careers correcting essays, had no difficulty communicating to me where my writing needed to be improved. I even made sure that one reader was a male, since I wrote part of the novel from the main male protagonist's point of view, and I wanted a male take on that voice. And then there was the neighbor and friend who is just good with detail and caught typo's no one else found.
As you can see, I completely agree that you need to have a team to help you, but ultimately, it your vo